By JOHN BURNETT Tribune-Herald staff writer ADVERTISING The Eden Roc Estates home is makeshift, Puna-style — part shipping container, part shotgun shack. Even the doghouses on the property are repurposed pet carriers. A lifted white Dodge four-wheel drive pickup stands
By JOHN BURNETT
Tribune-Herald staff writer
The Eden Roc Estates home is makeshift, Puna-style — part shipping container, part shotgun shack. Even the doghouses on the property are repurposed pet carriers. A lifted white Dodge four-wheel drive pickup stands silent sentry in the driveway, a concrete slab barely large enough to hold the vehicle.
As peaceful as the scene on Palainui Avenue appeared on Wednesday, a strand of yellow police barricade tape and a carefully placed arrangement of anthurium and fern fronds on the truck’s rear bumper tell another story.
This is where Robert John Leong was found shot and strangled to death Saturday morning.
Police say the owner of the property, identified by county property tax records as Lloyd Dela Cruz, found the body of the 52-year-old Leong, who was known to friends and family as “Johnny.”
“Apparently, he went there to pick up tools because he had storage on the property,” said Capt. Mitch Kanehailua, commander of the police Criminal Investigation Division. “He had a job to do, so he went there to get his tools and he found the body.”
The Tribune-Herald was unable to contact Dela Cruz.
Kanehailua said police have not identified a suspect yet. He said no drugs were found on the property. Asked if there were any signs of burglary, Kanehailua replied: “Hard to say if there was a break in, because I don’t think that shack could be secured.”
Leong lived alone, except for his dogs, Kanehailua said.
Kahala Del Ray Cromwell of Hilo, who’s known Leong since both were children in Hawaii Kai, Oahu, called Leong’s slaying “shocking.”
“Nobody deserves that,” she said, adding she had no idea why someone would want to kill him.
Cromwell said that Leong was a fisherman and surfer. She described Leong as “a ladies’ man,” but said he was also “pretty reclusive.”
“I think Johnny was doing the best he could under the circumstances,” she said. She said it had been awhile since she had seen Leong.
An Eden Roc resident, who asked not to be identified, told the Tribune-Herald that police were on scene investigating for several hours Saturday. She said she didn’t know Leong, but described the mood in the subdivision near Mountain View as “agitated.”
“It’s a little scary,” she said. “We’ve heard a lot of other things that have been going on out here, people getting into other people’s containers. There’s a lot of theft.” She said her own property has not been burglarized but she has been told by neighbors that police response to burglaries is slow.
“The impression is that the police in Hilo are traffic cops and nobody is taking care of (burglaries) in the subdivisions,” she said.
Asked if she thought it strange that no one reported the sound of a gunshot before Leong was found, the woman said the sound of gunshots in the rural area is commonplace and doesn’t necessarily send residents scurrying to call the police.
“People are shooting pigs all the time on their own property. We hear ’em constantly,” she said.
Email John Burnett at
jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
